Windows builds time out during cache restore

Environments Windows
1

The Windows file system seems to be a lot slower when restoring e.g. cached node_modules folders than Linux and MacOS, resulting in frequent failing builds due to timeout. Example:

https://travis-ci.org/bkimminich/juice-shop/builds/569393889

In that example the Node.js 12 build on Windows just barely made it to restore the cache in 10min while the Node.js 10 ran into the timeout. I wouldn’t know how to add travis_wait, but either allowing this or producing some ...-progress output by default would be appreciated. Or making Windows file system faster… :slight_smile:

2

We’re seeing the same issue, not sure if this is new but lately all of our windows builds timeout on cache restore. This is a pretty tiny project too. Just deleted the cache and it seems to be working again.
Would like to see this get fixed!

3

Can confirm getting the same thing. Is quite frustrating

4

Comparing the new download logic (only on Windows by default) with the old one (used on Linux and macOS by default), I can see that the old one used to disable Nagle’s algorithm while the new one doesn’t. Might be a reason for delays.

EDIT: As found in this other post, Windows Defender is responsible for a large chunk of the slowness. Normally you’d disable it with PowerShell commands like:

Set-MpPreference -DisableArchiveScanning $true
Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $true
Set-MpPreference -DisableBehaviorMonitoring $true

… but in this case you have to execute these commands at startup, before the cache restore starts. I accomplished this by backticking the commands into environment variables:

env:
    global:
    - >
        DISABLE_WINDOWS_DEFENDER=`powershell -Command
        Set-MpPreference -DisableArchiveScanning \\\$true`
    - >
        DISABLE_WINDOWS_DEFENDER=`powershell -Command
        Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring \\\$true`
    - >
        DISABLE_WINDOWS_DEFENDER=`powershell -Command
        Set-MpPreference -DisableBehaviorMonitoring \\\$true`

Now the whole build (not just the cache restore) runs much faster.

3 Likes
5

Seems to work, nice trick! I’m going to add this to Gravis-CI!

6

You took it to the next level! Thanks!

7

I’ve tested @tanzislam’s idea with a fork of @bkimminich’s repo.

Here’s the “happy” build: https://staging.travis-ci.org/BanzaiMan/juice-shop/builds/747916.

Compared to the previous build https://staging.travis-ci.org/BanzaiMan/juice-shop/builds/747914 (which created the cache), the build time is 2 minutes shorter.

With the production code with no tinkering with Windows Defender, https://staging.travis-ci.org/BanzaiMan/juice-shop/builds/747918 fails to expand the cache.

See

2 Likes
8

The PR above has been merged and deployed. Please report any result (hopefully good ones!) that you may find.

Thank you!